Father Involvement in the Early Years: An International Comparison of Policy and Practice

Fatherhood is in transition and being challenged by often contradictory forces: societal mandates to be both an active father and provider, men’s own wish to be more involved with their children, and the institutional arrangements in which fathers work and live. This book explores these phenomena in the context of cross-national policies and their relation to the daily childcare practices of fathers. It presents the current state of knowledge on father involvement with young children in six countries from different welfare state regimes with unique policies related to parenting in general and fathers in particular: Finland, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, the UK and the USA.

University of Padua

Elisabetta Ruspini is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). Since 2012 she has coordinated the Research Section “Studi di Genere” (Gender Studies), part of the AIS (Associazione Italiana di Sociologia-Italian Sociological Association). She is a board member of the ESA Research Network 33 “Women’s and Gender Studies” and has extensive teaching and research experience on gender issues. She has published a number of books, articles and contributed papers to many conferences.

Marina A. Adler is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA. Her research involves cross-national gender, work and family intersections, inequality (race, class, gender) and social policy, and social change.

Karl Lenz is Professor and Chair of Micro-Sociology and Vice-Rector for University Planning at Dresden University of Technology, Germany. His research focuses on the sociology of personal relationships, sociology of gender, and the life course.